Eagle girls tie again with La Reina

MICHAEL COONS/The Acorn NOT GIVING UP-La Reina's Rachel Van Horn, left, and Elyse Rosenberg of Oak Park fight for the ball during Friday's game at California Lutheran University. The teams fought to a 1-1 stalemate.

Oak Park and La Reina tied, 1-1, in girls’ soccer last Friday afternoon in a game played at La Reina’s home field at Cal Lutheran University. It was the second time the Tri-Valley League foes fought to a 1-1 deadlock and it kept the Eagles slightly ahead of the Regents in the race for a league championship.

La Reina went ahead, 1-0, on a first-half goal by Kris Goldman, a junior midfielder, and Oak Park tied the score with a second-half goal by Tatiana Camacho, a junior forward.

The tie gave Oak Park (9-7-4 overall) a 4-0-2 league record while La Reina (9-6-3 overall) moved to 3-0-2.

"It was a very physical game and a well-played game on both sides," said Oak Park head coach Ted Eggleston, whose Eagle team won a share of a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section Division V championship last year.

Added Eggleston, "Both teams can feel that they played a good game. La Reina played very well."

La Reina head coach Joe Laraneta agreed.

"I thought this is what soccer is all about," Laraneta said. "Both teams played very well and both teams made mistakes that could have been catastrophic but weren’t."

Laraneta said his team would have preferred a win but could live with the tie.

"The girls are probably more disappointed than I am," Laraneta said. "But I did think we could have won and that we played well enough to have won."

For Eggleston, it’s been a season with some growing pains after his championship team lost several key players who graduated last June. His players haven’t been as consistent as last year.

"They are not used to not winning and so it was very frustrating early in the season when we weren’t winning," Eggleston said about his current players. "Now I see the leadership on the team. The older players have really taken over and exerted that leadership."

One of those leaders is senior midfielder Elyse Rosenberg.

"It’s a big role," Rosenberg said of the responsibility that comes with being a senior and a veteran. "We have to make sure the freshmen are playing as hard as they can. At the beginning of the season we weren’t playing as a team, but each game we’ve become better."

Laraneta said his players have begun to think of themselves as a playoff-type of team.

"Just yesterday they started to think about, ‘What if?’" Laraneta said. "And there’s a thousand ‘What ifs?’ and they went over all of them. But we can’t take any team for granted. No matter who we play, we’ve got to be careful."

Eggleston said his team isn’t looking ahead to the playoffs—yet.

"We’re not even thinking that far in advance," Eggleston said. "We’re just thinking league right now—just trying to win league and then let the playoffs take care of themselves."

His team will lose key players again.

"When we look at some of the people we’re going to lose this year," said Eggleston. "Laura Pittman, Elyse Rosenberg, Daniela Spiegel, Kelly Viselman. Those are major losses and they’re losses for what they do on the field and they’re major losses for the morale and cohesion of the team."

Oak Park’s Rosenberg said she’s proud to have a championship ring.

"We worked hard last year and we won it," Rosenberg said of the Eagles’ co-championship with Oaks Christian. "It was wonderful. It was great. I loved it. I got a ring and it’s big, but I wear it."